The present invention generally relates to microprocessors, and more specifically, to optimizing the grouping of instructions in a microprocessor.
In modern microprocessors, all instructions need information to be decoded and relayed to the execution units. Throughout this process there are many areas that can cause performance degradation. One such area of performance loss is the grouping stage. Grouping is the process of determining which instructions can be dispatched together. In general, the overall performance of a microprocessor is directly impacted by the number of instructions that can be grouped together and dispatched on a given cycle. As a result, generating and implementing effective grouping rules as quickly and efficiently as possible is desired.